Publish What You Fund has today opened a written survey and are welcoming technical as well as general comments on the 2024 Aid Transparency Index methodology.

Over the coming months the team at Publish What You Fund will be conducting a review of the Index assessment method. Our aim is to ensure the Index remains up to date with current aid transparency practices and continues to reflect the areas of aid transparency that are most important for those using the data. We recognise the need to balance any changes with consistency across iterations of the Index so comparisons can be made with previous results.

The review will focus on the Index indicators and assessment approach. We will consider proposals for new indicators or approaches as well as areas where existing indicators can be improved. The process will be open and collaborative and we will be consulting widely with civil society, governments, open data and transparency experts and the publishers themselves to seek input and views.

Timeline

The review starts today with a written survey, which is open now for comment. This will run for three weeks until 1^st March. Publish What You Fund has also compiled an overview document of all the major Index methodology changes since 2013 which might help inform this survey. This is available here.

Next, in late February / early March, we will review all suggestions internally for their feasibility and compatibility with the aims of the review. Following these inputs, in early 2023 we will develop a set of draft proposals. We will then hold workshops with publishers, CSOs and partner governments to discuss the proposals. We will hold these in mid to late March.

Following this Publish What You Fund will review responses internally and produce proposals which will be consulted on in Mid / late March. The whole process will be finalised in spring 2023 giving donors enough time to realign their publishing practices before the first round of data collection for the 2024 Index (in mid-November 2023). A revised Index Technical Paper will be issued in the third quarter of 2023.

What to expect

In the coming weeks we will also be contacting individuals and groups for specific input, so please watch your inbox! This will include one to one consultation, but also invitations for when we convene groups for discussion. If you would like to provide input please send us an email – you can reach us on tracker@publishwhatyoufund.org. We are particularly keen to hear from aid data users.